Considering the numerous epic meltdowns she's had in the past, her performances at Worlds were practically "clean" by Kostner standards. If you don't remember too well, look up her performances at the past two Olympics, or Worlds 2009 and 2010, or pretty much most competitions before Vancouver for that matter.

Yes: Kostner made three mistakes out of ten jumps (SP+FS), all the other jumps were landed perfectly! Yu-Na made no mistake and had a more difficult layout so she won; Mao, for example, made mistakes in five of her ten jumps (two footed 3A, UR 3F, popped Lo, step-out and two-footed 3A, UR and turn-out triple flip; if you consider her "e" you can say six mistakes), so, even if her layout was more difficult, the mistakes put her behind... Carolina didn't skate bad at all!

1) This is your personal bias. His skating skills are some of the loveliest, and his SP was fantastic. Many will miss him, even if you won't. He's a 3-time world champion and part of that is due to him being one of the best *skaters* ever.

LOL, go look at the internet, people all around the world hate Patrick chan, his falls, interviews and his fake victories and they think he is the most overscored skater of all time (except canadians and his fans, of course). The sport will definitely be better without him, you want it or not. Nobody likes to see figure skating falling master winning gold medals over brilliant skaters who hit. PChan and his golds are disgraceful.

LOL, go look at the internet, people all around the world hate Patrick chan, his falls, interviews and his fake victories and they think he is the most overscored skater of all time (except canadians and his fans, of course). The sport will definitely be better without him, you want it or not. Nobody likes to see figure skating falling master winning gold medals over brilliant skaters who hit. PChan and his golds are disgraceful.

The fact that we don't like how this system gives him placements that he doesn't deserve doesn't mean that we hate Patrick as a skater or as a person: I personally find him a great skater, but I don't think that he deserved this World title.

The fact that we don't like how this system gives him placements that he doesn't deserve doesn't mean that we hate Patrick as a skater or as a person: I personally find him a great skater, but I don't think that he deserved this World title.

Many people also don't like him as a person (what he shows in interviews and media) ... great skater, well, aside from the falls, he is... And it's not only the system that gives him placements, the judges give him as well.

I still thin the USFSA made a huge mistake in not sending Joshua Farris to worlds purely for the expsure and experience as he cold very well make the US team for Sochi.

No, no, no. Absolutely not.

1) Joshua is now the Junior World Champion - a position that is plenty strong enough coming into the Olympic year.

2) Joshua was FOURTH at US Nationals. That meant not only would the USFSA have had to ditch Ross Miner - the guy who had the highest total score of any US man of the season at that point - but also Jeremy Abbott. Like that would have ever happened.

3) Whether you like it or not, Ross DESERVED that spot at Worlds. He EARNED it.

4) Joshua WANTED to go to Junior Worlds again. He felt he had unfinished business there. He was offered the choice between 4CCs and JW and chose JW.

5) Some of Joshua's fans REALLY need to stop dogpiling Ross. a) It's not going to change the fact that Ross was 2nd at Nationals and b) it's just gonna start turning people off Josh. Seriously, shut up. I love Josh and I am more than happy that he is JWC and Ross got to go to Worlds.

6) If Joshua makes the 2014 team, I'm sure he'll be thrilled to go. But both he and Jason have said before, their aim is 2018.

Conclusion? Too many long competitions to watch and digest for four days. I still haven't seen all of it, so I really understand this

Originally Posted by Ilvskating

Number 1: Going through the all-event live is very exhausting. I'm glad to experience the World finally, but I don't think I'm going to do it again. Great experience and I love to see skaters that I never saw/noticed before, but it's physically and emotionally draining. You just feel so much more for the skaters than watching videos. I guess I will go to Grand Prix Final instead next time.

Thanks for the report. Love your last conclusion...

Originally Posted by Ilvskating

So that's pretty much my impression of the World. I think I basically agree with the medal ranking for all disciplines.

LOL, go look at the internet, people all around the world hate Patrick chan, his falls, interviews and his fake victories and they think he is the most overscored skater of all time (except canadians and his fans, of course). The sport will definitely be better without him, you want it or not. Nobody likes to see figure skating falling master winning gold medals over brilliant skaters who hit. PChan and his golds are disgraceful.

Not all the Canadians are happy for what happened in men competition. I am Canadian and I think Chan should have come third. He was over scored in his short, that allowed him to win with such a flowed program. It's a pity, as this does not help with the popularity with figure skating.

I wouldn't have had him 3rd, Sabrina. Fernandez made several errors amongst both of his programs. Chan's statement about Ten having the same errors as him is inaccurate and delusional, but for Javier it's arguably accurate if you take both programs into account.

Originally Posted by FSGMT

The fact that we don't like how this system gives him placements that he doesn't deserve doesn't mean that we hate Patrick as a skater or as a person: I personally find him a great skater, but I don't think that he deserved this World title.

This. And of those people who dislike Chan, well, even if he skates clean they'll still find something to pick at like how his skating is emotionless. It's pretty laughable when you see asinine, exaggerated statements like:

Karne how do you know that Josh Farris was offered 4CC and turned it down? I didn't hear that anywhere, and on the skating podcast there was a discussion about why he was not sent which made it seem like the USFS chose not to send him, did not give him the option and just assigned him to JW, no questions asked. They sent Hicks to JW as well not 4CC, and she was 4th in ladies, and Zawadzki got sent to JW the year she was 4th at Nationals in senior, and that was even with competing on the senior GP in the fall. Anyways, I think Josh could have had a decent shot to make the top 10 at Worlds but I kind of doubt he could have been 6th or higher and helped Max get 3 spots and I resented how people gave Dornbush a hard time in 2011 when he skated really well at Worlds and finished 9th, in his senior debut, at an event that had been postponed 6 weeks, because even though he kicked a** and was the highest placing American there, because the 3rd spot was lost, no one really gave him any credit for doing a good job and his confidence seemed to suffer a bit after that.

Nationals results were weird, I think a case could have been made where Ross, Jeremy, and Josh could have all been flip-flopped around, so any of them placing 2nd through 4th would have sort of been reasonable, but in the end, Ross melting under pressure and not skating his best at 4CC and Worlds may have helped Josh's Olympic chances anyways - USFS is probably not seeing Ross as such a steady eddie now and he's going to have to build back his reputation now, so barring a brilliant GP season, I would be surprised if he gets 84+ for PCS at Nationals again. Being new to the GP there won't be much expectations for Josh to do well so as long as he doesn't tank his GP season he should be fine reputation wise, and if he does well that can help. With 2 spots though odds aren't great for either Ross or Josh honestly though, the second spot is likely Abbott or Dornbush, maybe Lysacek. Anyways seeing what happened with Kovtun at Worlds, there's no saying Farris would not have done the same thing, Kovtun had arguably an even better/more consistent season than Farris even...until Worlds. Plus he wouldn't have been sent to both Worlds and the 1st alternate for JW was Harrison Choate and there was no way he had any chance to win that event with a 228+ score, and likely Jin would have prevented the American sweep and history would not have been made and yada yada. So while I think Miner's component marks at Nationals were a tad ridiculous, in the end it all worked out okay, and in favor of Josh and Ricky in terms of helping Olympic chances.

silverlake, your love of Josh is commendable. But your horn-blowing of Dornbush is beyond ridiculous. I did not see anything from Dornbush this season that had me convinced that he should be anywhere near the Sochi Olympic team. (And I would not let Abbott or Lysacek near it with a ten foot pole.)

We are now talking of a Nationals and an Olympics that are almost a whole year away. Who knows what anyone will be doing at Nationals next year? Max might have a total fall-apart, Josh might get injured again, Ross might turn up with three quads, Dornbush might get warped boots again. (Though that would be rather unlucky.) Jason might develop quads of his own, Rippon might finally come good, Alex Johnson might have the greatest career turnaround in history. This is figure skating. Anything can happen and it usually does.

What I know at this point is that you are placing the fifth-place, total-meltdown at Nationals onto the Olympic team ahead of the blow-them-away at Nationals, highest-score-of-the-first-half-of-the-season silver medallist. Can you not possibly see how that makes no logical sense? You are effectively advocating a Kovtun-Menshov situation.

Ricky was way better than Ross at 4CC, his last competition of the season. Overall this season between Dornbush and Miner, they are pretty equal, HOWEVER, Dornbush had an upward trajectory ending his season on a high note while Ross is on a downward trajectory with subpar showings at 4CC and Worlds. I think momentum matters. Jason was quite meh all season - until JW, when he was great. I think that makes a difference. That is why I'm saying if Jeremy rocks at WTT it will help him. He was not that bad at Nationals in all honesty, it could have been a lot worse.

And as for Abbott and Lysacek and their chances to make the Olympic team...the USFS loves them both, surely you must have realized this by now. And they have the component marks to back them up which none of the other guys do. Anyways, the appeal with Dornbush is that if you line up all the US guys and have them skate cleanly, Dornbush would probably come out on top of everyone else except an Abbott with a quad (and a clean Abbott with a quad...idk if that is going to happen at this point, particularly at the Olympics). Yes, he could beat Max because he too has been putting 2 quads in his FS and is stronger artistically. In the everyone-skates-clean situation, Miner realistically is like 5th, behind Abbott, Dornbush, Aaron and Farris, and give a quad to Rippon and Brown and they can easily pass him too. The irony of the matter is that Ross really did not skate that badly at 4CC or Worlds, it's just that he's done for with even a few mistakes. Skaters like Abbott and Dornbush can score about the same with more mistakes and considerably higher with the same number. I think at his best, Ross maybe has an outside shot at the top 10 in the World right now, whereas Dornbush I think could be maybe top 5 or 6, and Abbott, oh Abbott, if he could ever deliver he would definitely be top 5 if not in medal contention. So that's why I think those two have good odds. With a few mistakes Miner is toast, we saw that this season, he can do well clean, but considering the quad is new for him and his technique is not textbook, idk if you can rely on him to skate clean with quads in high pressure events. It will take bigger messups for Dornbush and especially Abbott to get burried and skating well they can place higher. If Josh can get his quad secure he could very well move into #2 position because well...consistency hasn't been a friend of Dornbush or especially Abbott for awhile now. But atm I am a bit if Josh can actually do 4t-3t combos in practice considering he pretty much always splats on the jump in competition. But maybe he can, his falls on the jump just seem very heavy in competition so that's why I wonder.

I appreciate your fandom for two of these guys, but I don't think Dornbush could be top 5-6 at Worlds (and definitely not medal contending) with how he skates unless it's a bigger mess than this year's skaters outside of D10 were. He's way too inconsistent (even more so than Miner) and his edge work is no where near as good as Miner's (which is completely underappreciated by many, many non-skaters here and on other boards). Miner has RECENTLY added the quad (this season) and has been equally consistent with it to Dornbush who has been attempting it for TWO seasons now. I say give him another summer to work on it in program situations and we shall see what happens.

Of all the guys in the US, it's Jason Brown who when he gets a quad (or two) is going to be the man to beat and is potentially *that guy* who's always on or around the podium (depending on how clean HE is and not having to have help from others). Rumblings are that the 4T is coming (and it wouldn't surprise me if he got it fairly quickly because he is definitely a stronger toe jumper than edge jumper and the 3A and the 4T have a lot of similar mechanics and he's worked so very hard on the 3A mechanics and IIRC, he got the 3T pretty quickly after his 2A). I know you aren't a fan of his style and programs, but he has marvelous edgework, power, and flow, probably the best of all American men under 25 and definitely with more experience will start to get the scores if he gets the technical chops to match up with the big boys.

I still think Dornbush is stronger and less boring artistically than Miner, no matter how good Miner's edges are. Miner also has scary technique on his 4s and 3a, which Dornbush does not. Also Jason is a good artist but I don't know how good because Josh is still beating him handily at this point, with falling on his quad, and he has a ways to go in terms of artistry, and his programs aren't great and his current style is a little boring, so Jason being the one to beat I am not so sure. He has great spins but his jumps don't seem very high to me - long and pretty but not very high. The main reason I like Josh a lot is because his jumps are very high and light and his technique is really good. Plus he also has great lines and lets his skating blade flow very freely.